Mayor takes well-worn rehab trail following scandal

America: When San Francisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, was caught last month having an affair with his appointments secretary, who also happened to be his campaign manager's wife, he apologised and took full responsibility for the affair. The campaign manager resigned and Newsom offered to pay his salary out of his own pocket until the aggrieved husband found a new job.

That appeared to be the end of the matter until Newsom, who is seeking re-election in November, surprised his staff by announcing this week that he was seeking treatment for alcohol abuse.

"Upon reflection with friends and family this weekend, I have come to the conclusion that I will be a better person without alcohol in my life," he said.

The mayor, who won international fame in 2004 when he married thousands of gay and lesbian couples at San Francisco's City Hall, made his personal fortune by selling alcohol, opening a wine shop, building up a chain of restaurants and buying his own Napa Valley winery.

Rumours about Newsom's drinking have long been rife, but his decision to seek help may have been triggered by an incident a few weeks ago when the mayor showed up drunk at San Francisco General Hospital late on a Friday night to greet the grieving family and colleagues of a police officer who had just been shot dead.

Newsom insists that he will continue to do his job as mayor and that he is not pulling out of November's election and California senator Dianne Feinstein believes the public will be sympathetic. "He wouldn't be the first man who had a few drinks, and he wouldn't be the first man who had an affair," she said. "So he's got to work this out in his own mind, but I believe he can continue. There's no reason I see why he can't be a good mayor."

Newsom's decision to seek treatment sees him joining a long succession of American public figures who have turned to rehab in the wake of scandal.

Last October, former Republican congressman Mark Foley confronted his alcoholism and checked into a Florida clinic after he was caught sending sexually explicit e-mails to teenage boys.

Actor Mel Gibson sought psychiatric help after he launched into an anti-Semitic tirade against a police officer who arrested him for drunken driving and Seinfeld star Michael Richards went for anger management counselling after he launched into a racist rant at a comedy club.

Perhaps the most unusual case involves Isaiah Washington, a star of the hospital TV series Gray's Anatomy, who used a homophobic slur about a fellow actor at the Golden Globes ceremony last month.

After a series of public apologies failed to quell the storm, Washington spent several days at a centre for counselling and psychological testing.

"With the support of my family and friends, I have begun counselling," he declared.

Experts disagree about whether counselling can cure prejudice, although it can probably help offenders to avoid saying the wrong thing in public.

The task facing counsellors treating Rev Ted Haggard appeared more formidable after the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals admitted having regular sex sessions with a male prostitute over a three-year period, often using crystal meth to heighten the experience.

After just three weeks of intensive counselling, however, Haggard informed his erstwhile flock at the New Life church in Colorado Springs that he was a man transformed. "He is completely heterosexual. That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing," said Rev Tim Ralph.

Mike Jones, the prostitute who outed Haggard because of what he saw as the preacher's hypocrisy in opposing gay rights, was sceptical. "It's hard for me to believe that he's 'recovered' in three weeks when he'd been having oral sex with me for over three years," Jones said.

Haggard was unperturbed, telling his church that, after his spectacularly successful treatment, he and his wife were planning to study for masters degrees - in psychology.